Director Olivia Newman’s serviceable dramatization of the bestselling 2018 southern-Gothic-meets-earth-science romance by Delia Owens seldom captures the nature-struck lyricism of the prose (hard to imagine many filmmakers who could pull that off, apart from Terence Malick) but as adaptation-du-jour, it hits the major touchpoints.
A flashback-y timeline spans the early 1950s to the 21st century (like Owens, Newman does not aspire to invoke a time-capsule cultural atmosphere any more than absolutely necessary). In 1969, sheriffs on the North Carolina marshes discover the body of a local ladies’ man, Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) dead in the mud, having fallen—or been pushed—off an old observation tower. Suspicion falls on his ex-lover, Kya’(Daisy Edgar-Jones), a local eccentric dismissively dubbed the “Marsh Girl” for having led a mostly solitary, self-sufficient existence in the wild after her impoverished alcohol and abuse-scarred family fell to pieces.
On trial and pleading innocent, Kya reveals her lonely but unexpectedly rich hidden life to her defense lawyer (David Straithairn); she developed as a self-taught artist-naturalist and was taught to read by her gentle and similarly science-minded childhood beau Tate (Taylor John Smith). But upon attending college, Tate backed out of the idyllic relationship, leaving a heartbroken Kya open to the considerable charms of the community's alpha male and privileged football hero Chase—who does seem to sincerely love the outcast Marsh Girl...at first.
So did Kya end up killing Chase, or was it an accident? Shorn of Owens' sensual-yet-tasteful prose, the mystery here is pretty obvious—think Lifetime cable movie (watching the theatrical release on smaller-scale video will be very forgiving).
Aside from being on the tame end of the PG-13 (granted material that depicts attempted rape and domestic violence) the primary virtues of Where the Crawdads Sing is a cast of largely unfamiliar performers. In yesteryear's Hollywood a rising glamor queen would have been cast in the lead (remember Audrey Hepburn as Rima the Bird Girl in Green Mansions?), but Edgar-Jones is a nicely human-scale heroine, though left a bit adrift by a script that wobbles between her wide-eyed innocence, rural toughness and Boo Radley-spooky qualities (perhaps not enough of the latter).
It may count for certain buyers as well that women predominated in the creative team (the writer, the director, and producer Reese Witherspoon—a particular champion for the novel—right down to Taylor Swift warbling a closing theme). The title is recommended to mainstream public-library film collections where the book proved its phenomenal popularity. Consider this title if you are planning library programming on Southern Gothic works or film adaptations of acclaimed books.